Thursday, January 6, 2011

I loved studying the Family Proclamation with my children last January, so I decided to do it again this year, but with a fresh approach. I have broken down the Family Proclamation, so that each line corresponds to a letter of the alphabet. As I teach my kids the alphabet, I am also helping them to memorize the Family Proclamation one line at a time.

I have listed our course of study below. In parenthesis are the "key words" that will help them to remember and memorize the phrase in quotations. I also provide a photo or gospel art that will help trigger the quote in their minds. I print out the free A, B, C Block & traceable letters from this site, and we discuss the quotes as we color in and trace the letters each day. (You'll notice that on about three of them I wasn't able to match up the letter exactly, so I chose another word instead!)

The Family Proclamation A, B, C's

A - (Adam & Eve) - "All human beings--male and female--are created in the image of God.B - (Babies, Birth, Bonds) - "Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony."C - (Commandment & children) - "We declare that God's commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force."D - (Daughters & Sons, Divine Destiny) - "Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and as such, each has a divine nature and destiny."E - (Essential & Eternal) - "The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan.F - (First commandment) - "The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife."G - (Gender) - "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."H - (Husband & Wife, heritage) - "Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. Children are an heritage of the Lord."I - (In) - "In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshiped God as their Eternal Fatherand accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize his or her divine destiny as an heir of eternal life."J - (Jesus Christ) - "Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ."K - (Work) - "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."L - (Love & Righteousness) - "Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness."M - (Marriage) - "Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and (that) the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children."N - (Necessities & Nurture) - "By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."O - (Obligations) - "Husbands and wives--mothers and fathers--will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations."P - (Powers of Procreation) - "We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife."Q - (Created) - "We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed."R - (Relationships) - "The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave."S - (Sacred Temples) - "Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally."T - (Teach & Provide) - "Parents have a sacred duty to rear children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another..."U - (United States) - "...to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live."V - (Vows) - "Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity."W - (Warnings) - "We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God."X - (Extended) - "Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.Y - (Calamities) - "Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."Z - (Sanctity) - "We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God's eternal plan."

Where does your energy come from? Your children must go to bed at night so you have an evening. Our boys have just started to not fight bedtime and I'm not sure what to do in an evening without children. It is amazing.

OH my goodness!!! I've missed your blog a couple days in a row and I am SO glad I came back through your other posts because WOW! This is a fantastic idea! Hopefully I can do this with my kids. They may still be real young to understand a lot of those words (ages 1 and 3). But I'll see how I can incorporate the basic idea!

This is really fabulous! I have been following your site for over a year now and feel like I know you. You are such an inspiration! Thank you for taking such an important part of the gospel and making it simple enough for our children to understand!

So excited to use these ABC's to help teach my children about the proclamation. Random question though...do your abc's match-up with the 30 Days of Proclamation that is also on your site? Not sure if they are linked, or are two separate things. Thanks!

Thank You so much for sharing the ABCs and inspiring CK to create freebie coloring sheets to go with them! Just printed your ABCs for my benefit and the coloring pages for the kids. We will have them for a daily summer activity for my kids! Hopefully our family will grow even more close through this activity.

Thank you for your wonderful ideas! We used your ABC's of the Family Proclamation at our Activity days Mother daughter Activity. We actually used the abc parts and turned it into a movie. Here is a link to our Activity. Thanks again!!!http://ldsactivitydayideas.blogspot.com/2012/09/mother-daughter-part-of-wonderful-bunch.html

Thank you so much for sharing your ABC's. I actually downloaded them a couple of months ago. I finally just got time to really look at it and I noticed the "T" page is missing in the PDF, it is also missing on your preview box on the blog. Is there anyway I can get it? Thanks, Tianna

Oh I see...she updated the file on her blog, but I don't have the code yet to update mine...try going here to download the full file with letter T http://madebybedtimetales.blogspot.com/p/contacting-us.html

oK, I updated the code...so the letter T is there now! Thanks for letting me know! CK had fixed that this summer, but I neglected to update it on my site! Thanks Again and enjoy! I'd love to see how you and your kids use them...